A little backstory, because we all like that, right? I moved into a new place back in November, and decided to paint my bathroom lavender and go with a purple/white/turquoise theme. Then, while idly browsing the internet, I saw this cover for the upcoming season 6 DVD of Futurama, and the colors were just perfect for my bathroom! So, I had to paint it.

She is done in oil on canvas, 24"x30". It took me several months to finish because I worked on it only very sparingly. I sketched out the image from the DVD freehand, then traced my sketch onto transparent acetate and used an overhead projector to then trace the image onto the canvas for painting. I am so pleased with her! She just needs a nice white frame and then she'll be hanging up in her intended home in no time!

ETA 10/31/11 - I finished the big one! It still needs a frame, but it's done! Take a look! Here's the little painting and the big one together, for size reference:

For the first time ever, I am painting an actual painting, and I am super excited! I usually stick to pencil and marker, but thought it might be fun to try Lichtenstein's graphic style. So I decided to paint a big portrait of my friend and art tutor. However, before I started the big one, I did this small 1'x1' version to get the colors down and to make sure I could even pull it off. So, this is the small version!

This small one is oil, acrylic, and Sharpie on artist board. Because of the smaller size of the canvas, the benday dots seem bigger than on the actual full size painting.

As a bonus, here's a shot of the big painting, which is still a WIP that I look forward to posting when it's complete! The big painting is 3'x3'.

And for those of you who are all about the process, here's a pic of me applying the benday dots to the large painting. Basically, I bought a perforated sheet metal screen from Amazon (this one is 1/16" dots) and then stenciled on the dots with a stencil brush in oil paint.

Comments are appreciated! Also, I really want to decorate the living room of my new apartment around this painting, so suggestions for furniture colors and accessory ideas are welcome too!

Hey Craftsters! This is my first time posting in this particular board, but I have never had any opportunities to explore interior design before now! I am getting an apartment of my own, which is something I'm both very sad and happy to do, and I don't own any furniture of my own whatsoever. The apartment has that traditional beige carpet and white walls (which I am allowed to paint, thankfully!). Anyway, I'm currently working on a Roy Lichtenstein-inspired painting, a portrait of a friend of mine, and I'm so excited about its progress that I want to use it as a centerpiece in my apartment. I love modern art and design/pop art, and need some suggestions for how to decorate around this painting. What colors would go well with it? What color should I paint the walls? What color furniture would look good with it? The apartment I'm looking at has a fireplace surrounded in tan brick on one wall, so I wonder if it will be hard to pull this kind of aesthetic off with that there too. Any suggestions are much appreciated!

Here's a picture of my miniature study version of the painting. The actual painting is 3'x3' and the background is going to be just straight up yellow, not the orange yellow shown in this picture (I changed my mind after painting the study's background that color; that's the whole point of doing the mini-painting first!)

I can't take all the credit for this idea; I was totally inspired by this post (https://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=374088.msg4430516#msg4430516) by DesignerFake in the Hoopla Rd 4 gallery thread. My boyfriend and I frequent Reddit (a big link aggregate site similar to Digg) and we can't stop laughing every time we see Trollface. So, I just had to stitch him up! And my boyfriend was cool with the idea of hanging it on the front door of our apartment, chalking it up to an April Fools decoration, so now we can snicker and giggle as we leave for work for the day and come home too!

Trollface is split stitch, back stitch, and satin stitch. 6 strands for the thicker parts, two strands for the thinner ones.

I finally got my hoops from sloth003 today! She made a great set of Bioshock hoops, with a Little Sister beckoning her Big Daddy! I love the metallic floss parts of the Big Daddy, and sloth003 says there are glow in the dark bits too, but I'm not home to check it out yet. I will get pics of that when I get home tonight!

(Craftster keeps resizing my photo, so I'll get some bigger individual shots when I get home.)

I'm participating in the Hoopla Round 4 swap, which is a diptych round (paired hoops) and was fortunate enough to get paired up with sloth003, who is into all kinds of fun, nerdy stuff. When she mentioned that a set of Mythbusters hoops would make her giggle forever, I just had to oblige! I present to you the guys with the job we all envy, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman!

Here's Adam! He's done mostly in backstitch, with some long and short stitch in his shirt. His glasses are done in metallic black thread but it's not as shiny as I had hoped it would be. His hair is my favorite part; I really like how it came out most of all!

Here's Jamie! Like Adam, he's also predominantly backstitch. His shirt is satin stitch, his glasses done in metallic silver floss, and his glorious beard is turkey work! It was time consuming but so worth it! Grooming it afterwards made me feel like I was giving him a haircut, so it was a lot of fun!

Obligatory close-up to show extent of said furriness!

I wanted to do more with them as far as color, but I was afraid a fancy background would detract too much from the central focus, so I found those cute little gears instead and sewed them on. sloth003 really liked them, so that made me happy. I hope you guys dig them too!

I know we have some gamer Craftsters out there, but most of the video game themed swaps I see cater more to the mainstream stuff, like Mario and Zelda and the ilk. Are there any crafters out there who have played any of the Shin Megami Tensei games? There are so many different sub-series within the series itself (I myself am extremely partial to the Persona games) and wondered if there would be enough interest to create a swap around this awesome series! I've never been an organizer before, but I'd try it if there was genuine excitement for something like this!